Beyond Tomorrow
by Screaming Faeries
Summary: A collection of different Barty/Regulus Soulmate!AUs. Latest: To Love a Ghoul - Barty fears for his future when his body begins to decay after his twenty-fifth birthday.
1. To Love a Ghoul

\- Jewel Day Challenge: Moonstone Necklace - Write a Soulmate!AU

\- 2017 Drabbles: Dreadful

 **Word Count:** 1954

* * *

 **To Love a Ghoul**

Barty stared out of the window, resting his chin on his hands. He was utterly miserable.

He had been twenty-five for three days now, and his soulmate was nowhere to be found. He knew he was being impatient — some people waited years and years until their soulmate came along. His father had waited thirty years before meeting his mother, by which time he hardly had a shred of skin left on his body. Mr Crouch had made sure to tell Barty in great detail about the smell that just wouldn't leave his favourite suit.

Now that Barty's mother had passed away, Mr Crouch was beginning to fade again. It wouldn't be long before he withered away into nothingness, now that his soulmate had died. He spent most of his time in bed, for which Barty was thankful. He never really got on with his father.

The world wasn't kind if you didn't find your soulmate. There came a point in life when the body turned twenty-five that it began to die. Not the person within the vessel, but the actual body. Slowly but surely, the body would decompose and mould, until you were nothing more than a walking corpse. It wasn't unknown for people to live like this forever, slowly worsening whilever they waited for their soulmate.

Until you found the one person that you were supposed to be with. Then, everything would go back to normal. The body would start ticking again, and you were able to grow old with your soulmate. More often than not, the pair would live together and die together in harmony.

Unless, such was in Barty's father's case, illness struck one member of the duo. If one died before the other, the one who remained would stop living again, but this time, once the body died past a coping point, you passed away with it.

Barty had seen corpses walking the streets since he was a child, and the idea of becoming one of them one day terrified him. The really affected were known as Ghouls, and the longer you became a Ghoul, the less chance you had of finding your soulmate. Ghouls tended to revert to a nomadic lifestyle once their appearance became so dreadful that others found them intolerable, and then the likelihood of bumping into their soulmates became slim to none. Barty knew that he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he became a Ghoul.

As soon as the clock ticked into the day after his twenty-fifth birthday, Barty's heart had stopped beating. He had been laying awake, listening to it thrumming in his ears, and then suddenly — nothing.

It was the scariest thing he had ever experienced.

oOo

Thirty-five days after his birthday, Barty took up a job delivering newspapers for the local newsagent. Even though his depression wanted him to stay indoors and wait for his inevitable Ghoul to emerge, he needed some Get Up and Go.

"Are you under twenty-five?" the aged newsagent had asked, peering at Barty suspiciously. No-one wanted a Ghoul working for them, and even though Barty had technically been dead for a little over a month, he knew that he was starting to look a little worse for wear. He had taken to wearing a wig to cover up the patches where his hair was falling out, and he was spending a lot of money at professional Preservers. The nice lady who he saw injected a formaldehyde mixture into several different sections of his body every week. After a day or two of stiffness, he would be able to move again — albeit a little rigidly. It made him smell a little funny, but Barty preferred the chemical scent over the rotting odour of a corpse.

A lot of body spray and aftershave masked the smell of embalming fluid, and aside from a little paleness under the slick of make-up he used on his face, he figured that he could pass for being very much alive.

"Twenty-four," Barty replied confidently. "Just turned twenty-four."

The newsagent shrugged. "You're hired."

oOo

He delivered newspapers all over town, and the job was exhausting. If he had a live working body, it would be a piece of cake, but while his muscles didn't function and he had very limited bone density now. He had to go slowly, and return to the newsagents with a positive smile.

After several weeks of arduous walking, he finally stopped outside the steel gates of a mansion that sat atop a hill. He had never delivered a newspaper here before, and there was no need for him to really — but the abandoned old house was intriguing. He peered at the dirt-caked plaque on the gate, and used his sleeve to rub away the muck. _House of Black._

Barty raised an eyebrow. The surname was familiar to him, from the stories that many people around town told. The Blacks were an old family, who used to be aristocratic and prominent in certain circles. They _never_ ventured into being Ghouls. For centuries, they always found their soulmates from an early age. Most of their hearts never stopped beating at all. They never had to suffer the empty silence of death.

The last Blacks had died nearly a hundred years ago. Walburga and Orion withered away together, both well into their eighties, and no-one really knew what happened to their two sons. The rumours were that Walburga had disowned the eldest son after he found his soulmate, who was from a family that she didn't want to associate with, and the youngest took his own life when he failed to find his soulmate.

Now, the house just stood here like an old ghost. Barty's curiosity was peaked.

oOo

He found a loose board on a back window, and was able to wriggle through the gap and into the house. He landed on a damp, wooden kitchen worktop, and the smell of mouldy food hit his nostrils. Grimacing, he jumped down from the worktop, wishing that being dead had prevented his sense of smell. The universe was full of strange rules.

The vintage wallpaper was damp and peeling off the walls, and the wooden floorboard were rotten, and Barty had to step carefully to make sure he didn't plunge into the unknown recesses of the basement. Every window was covered with corrugated iron or thick wooden boards, so only thin streams of daylight shone through into the dark house, highlighting every speck of dust that floated through the air.

Barty continued venturing through the old house, peering curiously into the old cabinets that still stood proudly, and letting his gaze linger on the old pictures of the many members of the Black family. One room he found was filled with nothing but pictures; they filled every blank space on all four walls, some were small, some were huge. Hundreds of pairs of narrow, dark eyes gazed down at him.

He stopped in front of the largest picture. It was an oil painting, framed elegantly in gold gilt, and contained four members of the family. The only woman in the family was a tall and menacing vision, with a high cheekbones and an intimidating look in her eyes. Her blonde hair was scraped back tightly, and she wore a high necked, long-sleeved black gown. She stood besides her husband, who was dressed stuffily in a three-piece suit. In front of the couple stood two younger men; one who was taller and scruffier, with untidy hair and mischievous eyes, and one who looked a little more reserved, with shiny dark hair and a slightly haunted expression.

It was strange. As Barty lingered on the younger son, he was sure he felt something that hadn't happened for weeks. _Tha-dump._

He clutched the left side of his chest. Surely that was just a trick of the imagination.

"Who's there?" a hollow croak from the corner of the room made Barty flinch. He spun around on his heel and backed up against the painting and peered into the gloom. _Tha-dump_. There was that familiar old feeling again.

An eerie white hand extended from the darkness, and Barty watched it clutch the left side of it's own body. He saw a wisp of white hair, and a brief glimmer of the off-white texture of bare bone. "Strange," the croaky voice continued. "I am almost sure my heart was beating just a moment ago."

"Are you a Ghoul?" Barty whispered, squinting through the darkness. He cringed as the person edged out of the corner and stepped into a narrow stream of light. Never in all of his life had Barty ever seen such a ghoulier Ghoul.

There was next to no skin left on his face, and the scraps that still clung to the dead muscle and thin bone structure was grey and lifeless. His hands were void of any skin or flesh, instead he held a skeletal hand to his chest. The smell was beyond anything Barty had ever experienced in his life, and as the Ghoul came closer, he was forced to cover his nose automatically.

The closer the Ghoul came, the more features Barty was able to place. The faded suit he wore was reminiscent of the ones that many of the men in the pictures were dressed in. Even though the Ghoul no longer had eyelids, the colour still remained in the irises; a steely, stormy grey.

And then everything started moving again. Barty's heart drummed loudly in his ears, and he felt the organ begin to spark light into every other part of his body. He felt the blood rushing like a tidal wave through his veins, warming his skin and bones with a heat that he had almost forgotten about. His lungs suddenly needed air again, and he sucked in cold oxygen gratefully. His scalp tingled, and he pulled the wig off his head and ran his fingers through his hair, marvelling at how it became thicker by the second.

But the transformation of the Ghoul was much more astonishing. As if by magic, the flesh began to knit back across his body in thick threads, followed by pale skin which stretched across his body. Eyelids slipped from the back of the pearly orbs and each dark eyelash grew at an unbelievable speed. Ebony threads of hair flowed out of his scalp as fast as snakes, stopping its growth just beneath his ears. He stared at the back of his hands, mesmerised by the pink slither of his new fingernails.

"I don't believe it," he murmured, and his voice was silky and polite and out of this era, unlike the raspy croak Barty had heard before. "I thought I would never live again."

"You're," Barty breathed, glancing back at the painting behind him. "You're a…"

The man stepped forward, straightening the decayed suit, and extended his hand to Barty. "My name is Regulus Black," he spoke softly. "It would appear that you're my soulmate."

Barty shook his hand, feeling the sensation of sparks when their hands touched. He thought that had just been a myth. "Barty," he replied. "Barty Crouch."

"I must say that I'm glad you've finally come along," Regulus Black continued. "I've been mouldering away up here for over eighty years. Shall we take a walk outside?"

Barty nodded, feeling slightly dumbfounded. He dropped the bag of newspapers he had been holding, and let Regulus slip his arm into the crook of Barty's. Now that he had found his soulmate, he wouldn't be needing to wander aimlessly around town anymore.

Things were looking up already, and Barty hadn't even had to venture into life as a Ghoul.

Happiness bloomed through him like wildfire.


	2. A Tale of Two Sides

**Written For:**

\- Gift Giving Extravaganza: Written for DobbyRocksSocks

\- Great Easter Egg hunt: B10 - Soulmate!AU

\- 2017 Drabbles: Brilliant

 _Adopted this Soulmate!AU from Chapter 2 of NeonDomino's 'We're Simply Meant to Be'. I implore you to read all of them!_

 **Word Count:** 2,535

* * *

 **A Tale of Two Sides**

Before Barty opened his eyes, he absorbed the strangely wonderful feeling that passed through him. He felt refreshed, as though he had just slept a solid nine hours, the sheets he slept in smelled of fresh linen, and he was the comfiest he had ever been in his life.

Then he opened his eyes.

Normally, his solitary apartment was filled with sunlight at seven thirty in the morning. Instead, he was met with the gloomy, hazy glow that heavy curtains over the window would cause. _But I don't have any curtains…_ he wondered idly.

He sat up and stretched, and slowly became aware of his surroundings. He was laying in the middle of a vast, four-poster bed, with thick black curtains surrounding it and charcoal sheets and blankets. Looking down at his chest, he realised he was wearing button down pyjamas made from black silk.

Barty didn't own _anything_ made from silk. And he certainly didn't go to bed wearing such restrictive clothing.

He jumped out of the bed and immediately became entangled in the heavy curtains. Once he had freed himself, he stumbled over to the window and pulled the coverings aside, letting sunlight stream into the bedroom. Now he knew that something was really wrong.

The bedroom alone was bigger than Barty's whole apartment, and it was filled with things that Barty could never dream to afford. Silver trophies gathered dust on the shelves, a huge walk-in closet had the door swung open to one side of the room, but the king-size bed was the main feature. Barty advanced on the closet, spotting the glimmer of a mirror on the door. He pushed the door closed and let his eyes adjust to his reflection.

Something was really wrong.

oOo

Before Regulus opened his eyes, he had cramp in his leg, and the beam of sunlight was hurting the backs of his eyelids. Also, his feet were cold. In fact, all of his body was cold. He swatted around the bed blindly for his comforter, but his hands only grabbed thin linen sheets.

His eyes sprang open, and he stared up at the white ceiling that didn't belong to him. There were no curtains around the small bed that he was laid in, and with a small gasp of horror, he realised that he was barely clothed underneath the thin linens. He sat up and rubbed the back of his aching head, feeling short, shaggy hair at the nape of his neck, quite unlike the thick locks he was used to.

He climbed out of the bed, feeling bare dressed only in boxer shorts. He hurried across the small room, looking around desperately for a mirror.

The room wasn't just a bedroom. It seemed to have many functions — the bed he had slept in was pushed up against the corner; a small row of counters was on a far wall with a refrigerator underneath one and a sink plumbed into another, and a two-seater couch with holey cushions was placed haphazardly in the centre of the room, close to a nearby bookshelf that was packed with books.

Regulus knew _exactly_ what was happening. His brother had warned him all about the effects of the soulmate trigger when it had happened to him earlier in the year. When two people became mentally mature enough to start a relationship, something within the universe was triggered, causing two soulmates to swap bodies for twenty four hours. Usually, those twenty four hours were spent trying to find each other.

A surge of excitement passed through Regulus, as he realised that he would soon be met with the reflection of the man that Fate wanted him to spend the rest of his life with.

That was, when he could find a mirror in this tiny apartment.

oOo

"Reg?" came a voice from behind the oak door, startling Barty. "Reg, are you decent? I need to be quick, I don't want to be here when Mum gets back—" the door was thrown open rudely, leaving Barty to stand and stare awkwardly at the intruder. "Why are you still in your bedclothes?" The man in the doorway looked a lot like the person that Barty had seen in the mirror, except his hair was longer and a little more unruly, and he had a thick shadow of stubble on his chin and neck. He raised an eyebrow at Barty; it arched higher with each second that Barty remained silent. "What is wrong with you?"

"I…um…" It was the first time Barty had spoken with his new smooth, silky vocal chords, and it felt unnatural. He rubbed his throat, missing the normalcy of his own voice, which was a little raspy from a few years of light smoking.

The man snapped his fingers, and his dark eyes lit up suddenly. "I know. It's not you, is it?"

"...What?"

"What's you're name? I'm Sirius," he walked forwards and stuck out a hand, which Barty tentatively shook. "I'm Regulus's brother. As in, the guy whose body you're stuck in right now."

"Does that mean…" Barty paused, trying to process the information. "That you're brother is in my body?"

"Yep," Sirius grinned widely. "And he's probably in more shock than you right now, if he's in the body of a woman. He's always been super weird around girls…"

"I'm not a girl," Barty said quickly. "I'm sorry — I don't know why this has happened…"

Sirius looked shocked for a moment, but then another grin spread across his face. "This is _brilliant._ Our mother…she's going to lay an egg or something when she finds out about this! Poor Walburga, both of her sons have turned out gay!" Sirius laughed loudly, and slammed his palm into the door frame. "This is great, really."

"Could you explain to me what's going on?" Barty asked.

"You really don't know?" Barty shook his head, and Sirius patted him on the shoulder. "Look, mate…get dressed. Throw anything of Regulus's on. I don't live here anymore, and if my mum gets back and finds out that you're in her precious son's body…well, it's not going to be pretty. Come spend the day at my place, and I'll explain. It happened to me not long ago, so I'm pretty much the expert on Soulmate Day."

" _Soulmate Day?"_

Sirius sniggered. "Hurry up, we've got a lot to talk about."

oOo

Regulus had no luck in finding a mirror. He had resorted to digging out the most conservative clothes he could find — blue stonewash jeans and a plain white t-shirt — and briskly tidying up the apartment. He had made the bed, then unmade it when he got a good whiff of the sheets, and slung them in the washing machine; he entertained himself for half an hour by washing up the pile of pots and pans that were starting to grow spores on the worktop; and he dug an old rag out of a drawer and did his best to dust all the surfaces in the apartment. Cleaning the place gave him time to really get a good look around the apartment.

It didn't seem as though his soulmate had much. There was hardly any food in his fridge, and he didn't have many possessions in the apartment. A shabby cigarette case lay on the windowsill next to a lighter, but it was empty. The initials B.C were engraved into the silver, but that didn't offer Regulus much insight as to who his soulmate was.

He rifled through the drawers, looking for post or identification documents, anything that could give him a clue. But there was nothing, just old clothes, socks and dishcloths — which seemed to be the newest thing in the whole flat.

Resigned, Regulus sat on the end of the bed. He figured that whoever his soulmate was, he had gotten out of Grimmauld Place quickly. Judging from the state of his apartment, he was scruffy and poor — two things that Walburga Black hated.

oOo

"Twenty-four hours," Barty repeated. "I'll be stuck in this body for twenty-four hours?"

"Yep," Sirius replied, and he pulled a packet of cigarettes out of the pocket of his leather jacket and popped one into his mouth. After sparking a lighter to ignite it, he noticed Barty looking longingly at him. "I would offer you one mate, but Regulus is strictly anti-smoking. I'll get a wallop if he finds out I let you poison his body with even one drag."

"I can go a day," Barty muttered, but he knew he didn't sound sure. "So, we have to find each other in these twenty-four hours?"

Sirius shrugged. "I mean, you're not going to turn into a pumpkin if you don't. But it's what people usually do. Even if they don't want to conform to the soulmate thing, curiosity usually gets the better of them."

"How do I find him?"

Sirius smirked. "So you want to meet Regulus?"

Barty felt a blush spreading across his — Regulus's — cheeks. "I guess so. It would be nice to see whose in my body."

"Do you have a phone at your place? You can call your phone from here, and if he's still there, you can speak to him."

Barty cursed himself inwardly for not already thinking of the obvious. "S-sure. But…maybe it would be better if you spoke to him first. He's probably already in shock."

"You're shy, that's okay," Sirius teased, and grabbed the phone. "But of course. What's the number?"

oOo

The telephone rang shrilly, startling Regulus. He jumped up from his seat on the bed, looking around wildly for the source of the noise, and spotted the white plastic telephone hanging on the wall. He rushed over and grabbed it, holding to his ear. "Hello?"

"How's Soulmate Day treating you?"

"Sirius!" Regulus had never been more happy to hear his brother's voice. "How did you know to ring — wait, are you with…"

"Your soulmate? Of course. He's sat here with me now. I was just about to tell him that story from when Uncle Alphard took us to the swimming pool and you couldn't be bothered getting out so you just pulled your trunks down—"

"Don't you dare, I swear to God, I will tell Mum."

"Good point," Sirius replied. "Though, Mum is going to kill you when she finds out that your soulmate is a man! How long did you know it wouldn't be a girl? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Can I speak to him please?!" Regulus shouted over the top of Sirius's relentless questions. "I can listen to you waffle on any old time."

"Fine," sighed Sirius, and there was a brief sound of muffled voices and the rustling of the telephone being passed between hands.

"Hello?"

It was the strangest thing, to hear his own voice on the other side of the line. It was as though Regulus was listening to a recording of himself speak. "H-hi."

There was a pause, and Regulus wondered if his soulmate was having the same thought. "This is really weird, right?"

"Really weird," Regulus replied hastily. He was suddenly overwhelmed with a magnitude of questions. He didn't want either of them to stop speaking for a moment, for fear of an awkward silence creeping in. "I suppose that Sirius has told you all about me. But I don't know _anything_ about you. What's your name?"

"Barty Crouch," his soulmate answered. "And you're Regulus Black."

"I am," murmured Regulus.

"Give me the phone back," a familiar voice demanded in the background, and suddenly Regulus was listening to his brother again. Before he could chastise Sirius for his rudeness, the older brother kept talking. "Remus just showed up. He says that you have to come over and have dinner with us."

"Whose cooking?" Regulus asked doubtfully. He had tasted Remus's cooking in the past, and he wasn't sure he was ready to risk food poisoning again.

"We'll order in," Sirius answered. "I would cook, but I don't to miss a minute of you making a fool of yourself. Come over at five," Sirius hung up before Regulus could snap back at him, and he was left listening to the dull beep of a dead line.

oOo

Barty paced around Sirius's flat as the minutes ticked closer to five. He didn't know what he was more worried about — seeing himself walk through the door, or actually getting to know the person inside his body. At exactly five on the dot, someone rapped on the door.

He hung back as Sirius opened it, hardly daring to breathe.

It was a surreal experience, as a version of himself stepped through the door. Even though it was like looking in a mirror, Barty could see the slight differences. His normally unruly sandy hair was _combed_ — where had Regulus even found a comb in his apartment? When he spoke, even though Regulus used Barty's voice, there was a softer edge to it.

"Weird," Regulus said as he stepped in front of Barty. He raised an eyebrow suddenly, his expression reminiscent of his brother's. "What am I wearing?" He plucked at Barty's sleeve. "Is that a _hoodie?"_

"It was the least uppity thing I could find in your closet," Barty replied. "Do you live in fancy shirts and button-fly trousers?"

"It doesn't hurt to dress nicely."

"It does. Those trousers _literally_ hurt."

Sirius ambled over suddenly, with his arm draped over Remus's shoulders. "Oh, you're bickering like an old married couple already." He looked pleasantly misty-eyed, and he leaned over to press a quick peck to his boyfriend's cheek. "Were we ever that cute?"

"Let's give them some space," Remus said with a smile, and Barty silently thanked him.

oOo

After dinner and several bottles of beer, Regulus and Barty sat back on Sirius's sofa. Sirius and Remus were in the kitchen cleaning up, and Remus had politely closed the door behind them, much to Sirius's distaste.

"Do you think…" Barty paused as Regulus looked at him. "Do you think you might want to get to know me better?"

A smile spread across Regulus's face. "Yeah. I think I'd like that."

"This is going to be really weird, especially seeing as I'm looking into my own face right now, but I kind of want to kiss you."

"That is kind of weird," Regulus sniggered. "But I kind of want to kiss you, too."

Slowly, they leaned towards each other, sliding their eyes closed as their noses touched. Just as they were meeting lips, they were startled by a blinding flash.

"I knew saving this disposable camera would be a brilliant idea!" Sirius exclaimed gleefully, holding a camera to his face. "This will be one to put on your wedding cake!" He bounced off into the kitchen, where Remus was already clicking his tongue at Sirius's behaviour.

"I think we should wait until tomorrow," Regulus muttered. "We're _never_ going to get any privacy while we're at my brother's flat."

Barty grinned and nodded. "Until tomorrow."


	3. Scars Are Just Reminders

\- Romance Awareness Challenge / Soulmate!AU: Your soulmate's name is written on your wrist.

 **Word Count:** 479

* * *

 **Scars Are Just Reminders**

Barty didn't tell anyone when he woke up to a name burning on the inside of his wrist.

It wasn't as though anyone really _cared_ to know - his father was much too busy with the Ministry to even remember the most important day of a young witch or wizard's life. His mother might have taken more of an interest, if she had been well enough.

He traced the blush italic letters with his finger every day, until he was sure he could write the name perfectly with his eyes closed.

oOo

Regulus wasn't the first to know about the name on his wrist.

He was rudely awoken in the middle of the night, to bony fingers hauling him out of bed. The familiar glittering eyes of his mother were scuttling over his arm, searching for the name that had inevitably appeared on his skin.

Her greedy smile vanished when she didn't recognise the name, and her lips twisted into something cruel when she saw that the name wasn't even _female_. "Not again," she snarled, and Regulus realised she was thinking back to Sirius. "I won't have this happen again!"

Regulus didn't resist as he was dragged out of his bedroom and into the drawing room. He knew better than to stand up against his mother. The scorched mark on the tapestry where his brother's name used to be was warning enough.

Using the spell she so often favoured for blasting people off that tapestry, Walburga set to erasing the name from Regulus's wrist, ignoring his screams that were carried off into the night.

oOo

When Barty found his soulmate at Hogwarts, he knew something was wrong.

Regulus Black had tears in his eyes and a thick, ugly scar on the inside of his wrist, where his soulmate name should have been.

"It doesn't matter," he assured the other boy, realising automatically what had happened. Many Pureblood families took this measure when a name appeared that they weren't happy with. "It doesn't stop you having a soulmate. It just means you won't know their name."

"I do know his name," Regulus replied smoothly, his dark eyes locking with Barty's. "I managed to get a glimpse before my mother ripped it out of my arm."

"You did?" Barty pulled at the sleeve that covered his name, not wanting to reveal who _his_ soulmate was to Regulus. "What was the name?"

Regulus dipped his quill into a pot of ink and held the nib to the scar on his wrist. Carefully, he printed the five letter name onto his wrist. _Barty._


	4. The Cure

\- Romance Awareness Challenge / Soulmate!AU: You can take away some of your soulmate's pain for yourself. / Prompt: knitted blanket

 **Word Count:** 399

* * *

 **The Cure**

 _and if you say you're okay_

 _i'm gonna heal you anyway._

Regulus had been taking away Barty's pain for years.

Ever since they met and discovered that they had the soulmate bond between them, and therefore the power to reduce any pain caused to their significant other, there had been no doubt in Regulus's mind that he wouldn't take Barty's pain. He had loved Barty since he first laid eyes on him.

Barty was _always_ getting into some kind of trouble that caused injury or accident. When they were at Hogwarts, it was usually the occasional Potion burn or a hex in the back from a bully. When they left and Barty started to deteriorate, Regulus would find Barty crouched over a razor blade in the dark, and he would close his hands over Barty's until deep red welts appeared on his own wrists. When he fell off his broom because he had always been a terrible flyer, Regulus took half of the pain from Barty's broken leg, and they suffered together for a few weeks under a knitted blanket.

But he never wanted, or expected, Barty to take any of his pain.

* * *

oOo

* * *

He returned from Voldemort's cave after drinking the poison hidden there, wrought with an unknown agony. Every pore on his body screamed with the pain of a thousand white-hot knives, and there was nothing he could do to cease the torment.

Sweat pooled in the bed that he rolled around in, and when Barty advanced upon him, holding his hands out to Regulus's, he shook his head. "No," he sobbed through the pain, holding his hands possessively to his chest. He wouldn't put Barty through it. "I'm okay."

"I want to." Barty insisted through gritted teeth. In his determined, dark eyes, Regulus knew there was no arguing with him. He let Barty take his shaking hands, and breathed a long sigh of relief as the pain subsided considerably.

Barty never screamed or cried, even though Regulus knew just how awful the agony was. He shook and sweated, and slumped down in the bed beside Regulus, staring ahead with wide, unseeing eyes.

They lay together until the sun set and the torture was over.


End file.
